When your mouth hurts from speaking English

I was inspired to write this because of what happened with one of my accent reduction students today. First I want to tell you about my personal experience with speaking French.

When I go to France, the first few days that I am there it’s a struggle to get the words out smoothly and my mouth literally hurts. The mouth muscles and lip movements used in speaking French are so different, and sometimes it’s just exhausting. I want to give up and just go back to speaking English. But if I keep trying to imitate the sounds that exist only in French but not in English, after about four or five days it’s so much easier. At that point, I feel confident about speaking it again and it becomes really fun. (It may sound weird to some people, but for me speaking foreign languages well is fun and very fulfilling.)

My Chinese student, a successful young man with an MBA, came in for a lesson today. I love his discipline and hard work. He generally practices every day when he first gets up. But this time he told me that he hadn’t practiced working on this accent for the past few days. In the beginning of the class, he said that his mouth wasn’t moving well and that he was struggling with creating the difficult sounds. By the end of the class it was a different story. He was warmed up and the sounds came out more easily and fluently.

Don't give up when your mouth feels "stuck." Work through it.

Some of you don’t have many opportunities to use English a lot because you have a technical job where you don’t have to speak a lot. And then you go home to your family and you speak your native language. That doesn't help! This is what you need to do: Talk to yourself out loud in English when you are alone. Hear yourself saying your thoughts. If you don’t like how something came out, you can fix it by repeating. No one is there to hear you! I did this when I was studying French in LA and I had no one to speak it with.

I had one student who made amazing progress by doing this every morning. He is an actor and people are shocked about how American he sounds.

Okay, that's my motivational story for you. It's really cold in LA today. It feels like December in Paris, but without my mouth hurting. :)
Good luck!!!

Don't stop practicing! Here's how:

1. Pick a topic that you can speak about for three to four minutes. Record yourself giving this speech. Listen to the recording and write down all of the errors that you have heard in your speech. Then, re-record the same speech, and try to correct the mistakes that you made before. Repeat this same speech 3 or 4 times, trying to sound better each time.

2. Watch an American film over and over again, rewinding certain scenes and repeating them out loud.

Be creative. There are so many ways to practice. The main ingredient to success is motivation. If you want to succeed, then you can succeed and you will succeed. If you are motivated to learn, you will automatically start listening to native speakers and trying to sound like them.

No Bad Words Allowed!!

Yesterday my student said to me that he had a client in “Newport Bitch.” I told him not to use bad language in my office!!! Of course, he meant “Newport Beach.” He told me that his American client laughed a little when he said that word in front of him.

Have you made the same mistake? Have you confused the words “beach” and “bitch” and “sheet” and “shit?” That can be embarrassing!

OK, here’s how to fix the error:

First, don’t just assume that the first vowel is longer and the second one is shorter. It sometimes sounds that way, but technically that’s not the main difference. The phonetic symbol for the vowel of “beach” is /i/. This sound is considered a tense vowel. For “bitch it’s /I/ and it’s considered a lax or neutral vowel. For the tense vowel, your tongue is tense and raised up. It helps to also tense your lips and smile a bit when you say it. For the relaxed vowel, the tongue is completely relaxed and the lips are completely relaxed.

The spelling of the word will tell you if the vowel is tense or lax. Generally words spelled with “ee” and “ea” as in “feel” and “weak” have the tense vowel. In contrast, words spelled with “i” have the lax vowel. Compare these sounds and make sure that you don’t pronounce these words the same:

/i/ /I/
feel – fill
steal – still
green – grin
meat – mit
seen – sin

Who are your role models for good speech?

In an effort to sound more American, some of my students try to imitate the speech of their native speaking friends, colleagues or spouses. While this is generally a good idea, you need to be aware of the fact that some native speakers may not be such great role models for you. Be careful of those who mumble (have lazy lips and don’t fully enunciate each sound). Generally talk radio show hosts and news broadcasters are good role models to imitate. Action movie heroes are usually not!


Also, pay attention to the differences between casual and formal speech. The speaking style that your friends use in casual situations may not be appropriate in a professional environment.


For example, I had a student who used the word “hey” instead of “hi,” even on her voicemail at work. “Hey, you have reached Jane” just doesn’t sound appropriate.” It’s OK to use “hey” as a greeting for your friends but not for business communication.

analyze your speaking style

Here’s something that will help some of you quickly improve your accents.

Do a little self-diagnosis of your individual speaking style. Here are three questions to ask yourself:

1. Do you tend to speak quickly in you native language?

If yes, you probably speak fast when you are speaking English as well. This can cause your accent to sound stronger, particularly if you are not following the rules of American English word stress and intonation (The melody of the language.) Think about it; if you are speaking fast and not stressing the right words, people will have a very hard time understanding you.

You shouldn't sound mechanical by pronouncing every word seperately like a robot. Learn the rules of linking words together when speaking English. Linking and speaking fast are two completely different things.

2. Do you have a quiet, reserved or shy personality?

Are you more introverted than outgoing? This can also be cultural, by the way. If yes, people may have a harder time understand you. Outgoing people are more animated not only with their body language but also with the way they move their mouth and use their vocal cords. The loud voice often forces the jaw and lips to move more, creating a sound that is clearer. Imitate someone who is outgoing and has a “big” personality. Remember, Americans are generally not shy people. They are more expressive than people from a lot of other cultures. Asians and northern Europeans in particular are less outgoing in general. I’m sure they think we Americans are too loud. In fact, I don't think, I know they do. Imitate us and your accent will sound better!! :)

3. Do you tend to mumble in your native language?

Some of my students admit to me that when they speak their native language they are often asked to repeat what they said. They have what is called “lazy lips.” They don’t enunciate (pronounce fully) all of the consonant and vowel sounds in any language. This bad habit can be broken.

Try this: Imagine that you are speaking to a deaf person who has to read your lips. You will naturally move your mouth more to make it easier for the deaf person to catch every word you’re saying. Or imagine you are a theater actor or a poet reading his poetry out loud - every word is beautiful to listen to, every word matters. Fall in love with the beauty of words, pronounce them clearly and with energy. Don’t just mumble them as if they are not important. Your words are important so say them well; don't take short cuts. Just like a dancer moves beautifully and a singer sings beautifully, a speaker can speak beautifully!

Advice for Success in the American Corporate World

A majority of my students are educated professionals. They are MBA’s, engineers, research scientists, lawyers. Some of them had already achieved a level of success and professional respect in their native countries before coming to the US. Others got their graduate degrees here.

They are able to express themselves in a sophisticated and eloquent way in their native languages. Even though Americans regularly compliment them on their fluent English, (and indeed, they are very fluent) they are secretly frustrated inside because they know that their ability to communicate in English limits them.

One of the common themes that I hear from them is their frustration about not being able to express themselves the same complex way in English. They struggle to search for the right word to accurately express their ideas and they worry that native speakers may not recognize their intelligence and expertise because of this. I get this question over and over again: “How can you help me to express myself more like educated native speakers?”


I have many suggestions about fixing this problem. For many years when I used to teach at Santa Monica College I focused on vocabulary development and business communication. I will share my suggestions to you in the coming blogs that I plan to write.

Right now I want to tell you about a product that I recently discovered when one of my students brought it to class. It’s the best vocabulary book for professionals that I have come across. I am very critical of language books and I don’t recommend them unless I really believe in them. So many books end up being a waste of money. I have a collection of ESL and business English books in my personal library, and I am familiar with the good ones and the bad ones. I used to sit on various book selection committees at the colleges where I taught.

If you are serious about improving your ability to communicate with more confidence in the American corporate environment, I strongly suggest that you get this book. It's got very useful vocabulary that is used by successful executives. The link is below. Actually, now they sell it as CD audio set so that you can hear the words and the example sentences. It’s great to listen while you drive. It also comes with software with exercises. (My student showed me the old version which used to be in book form. It’s the same material, but now just on CD)

It's actually designed for Americans who don’t feel comfortable about their ability to express themselves well due to a lack of powerful and educated vocabulary. So, you should already be an advanced speaker of English. Otherwise, don't buy it because it will be too advanced for you.

Here's a quote from the website that summarizes it:

"A Human Engineering Laboratory Study tested the vocabularies of thousands of people in various careers and age groups, and found that the people drawing the highest salaries scored highest on the vocabulary test. In fact, their results were so consistent that the researchers declared there was only one trait common to all successful people: A superior vocabulary."

Here is the website so check it out. It's kind of expensive but it's worth the price. If you get it, let me know what you think of it. http://www.executive-vocabulary.com/

Your Accent on a Job Interview

When you are competing with other job applicants, all other things being equal, the person with good communication skills will get the job.

Many of my students are taking accent reduction courses because they want to be better prepared for job interviews. They are worried that they might not get hired if their accent is too strong. This is particularly true for sales positions or any kind of job that requires giving presentations or interacting with the public.

In today’s economy and competitive job seeking environment, working on your communication skills is a must.

During a job interview, it’s possible that your accent will be even stronger than usual. This is normal. When nervous, we all tend to speak faster or hesitate and stutter. But the more you prepare the better you will sound.

Here are some of my tips for preparing for a job interview if you are concerned about your accent:

1. You MUST learn to pronounce the name of the company correctly.

2. You MUST pronounce the name of the interviewer correctly. If you get his or her name in advance, learn to say it. So many of my students don’t know how to correctly pronounce common American names. For example, the female names “Joan” and “Joanne” are not the same. Also, “Susan” and “Suzanne” are pronounced differently. I once had a student whose boss’ name was Doug. My student pronounced it as “dog.” Not a good idea!!!

3. You need to become an expert at pronouncing the common words related to your field. You will have to use them during an interview. Make a list of these words and practice saying them. If you practice them in advance with a native speaker, you will feel more confident. Have a native speaker record them for you and then listen and repeat. Some of the errors that I have heard from my students include:

• A student who had a job interview with the advertising firm Ogilvy and Mather who could not pronounce the name of this company.
• A Russian doctor whose patients never understood her when she asked them if they would like a “refill.”
• A Chinese structural engineer who could not say the word “structural” because of the dropped “r” and “l”.
• A university professor of statistics who could not say the word “statistics.”
• A Chinese pain doctor who pronounced the word “pain” as “pan” or “pen.”

In most situations, the fact that you have an accent won't be a problem. It's generally only a problem if the employer worries that your coworkers or clients won't understand you.